okay .... as you guys know there was an early bird special on the uDSD, and sadly i was one of those who missed out on it :sd: BUT, a buddy of mine managed to get one of these, and im sure he will eventually get around to posting his own impressions of it when he finally gets to use the unit, but since he is still getting the rest of his stuff together i managed to borrow it for a day or two from him :rubhands:
i know that a day or two isnt enough to really formulate some good impressions, but i really want to get one of these for myself so this is why i decided to see if its really going to work for my purposes or not ..... and my final decision is ..... I REALLY WANT ONE (even at the normal price its worth the expenditure since i cant call any audio item an investment)
herewith follow some pics and my story with the unit so far :
uDSD being unboxed
i read the instruction manual and i discovered that they describe how to connect it with Foobar using the SACD and ASIO drivers .... whch was cool since i already had Foobar installed on my Windows tablet so i installed the additional components and configured them as described and i was ready for some listening
all connected
So i have two pairs of headphones and one is a cheap Sennheiser HD202 and the other is a Sennheiser HD555 with a 595 mod done to it ..... so i tried out both and im only briefly going to mention what i found wth the HD202 since that isnt a really serious of headphones
the first time i plugged these into the uDSD and just listened to these i was amazed at the difference between the standard headphone jack of the table vs the DAC unit .... put simply it was a major leap in sound quality, even with the cheapie headphones BUT further listening revealed that the headphones were really a limitation, so since this isnt a headphones impression i basically changed over to the HD555
this now was more like it ..... initial impressions were that this was more lifelike and gave a warmer sound and was really closer to my actual hi-fi system. the midrange was natural and what more could i ask for, while the treble was detailed and yet sweet sounding without ever getting harsh or bright (which it easily could, using certain listening material with the HD202, but that was more the fault of the headphones than the DAC) Then we move on to the bass .... it sounded pretty full but it wasnt as even as you would get on proper hi-fi and certain instruments like bass guitar could sound mildly rumbly and drone a bit, but PLEASE NOTE that im attributing this once again as a limitation on the headphones being used, rather than the uDSD. I really would love to have had a better headphones for testing, but really, the sound that i got from the setup with the HD555 was something that i could easily live with as a load shedding option and not having a full system to play my music with since im pretty sure that the bass would improve with better headphones and possibly with some settling in time.
then i tried some 24/96 tracks which i dont have many off but i have some downloaded samples
as you can see from the bits circled in red these play at a higher bit rate than standard uncompressed 16/44.1 which would be showing 1412 while compressed (but still lossless would be lower still). The higher format played music clearer, and with a fair amount of noticably more detail, so even though it isnt a huge difference it was different enough to make me want to obtain more music in the higher resolution formats
Given that the source was a tablet i did not even bother to try a full 24/192 track but i did visit 2L and some other websites where i could download some legally free samples of this format as well as some DSD files which i am going to try out on my full system which is powered by a proper PC as well as in my actual AV setup (so a bit more on that later one after i have setup all those other systems to try this unit out in those)
i wish i could spend more time with this unit so i could actually give it some settling in time, but its not mine so i have to be patient till i eventually get my own one (which im even more determined to do when i have the spare cash) ..... but i will have to return this one (reluctantly) to its rightful owner very soon, so im going to have to do everything in a bit of a rush, and sadly i cannot take my time to allow the stuff to settle in properly ..... for me the main thing is that i got an opportunity to evaluate exactly what this item does before i could purchase it :thumbs: and my conclusion is that its a great item and if you want it for a prtable solution its really top-notch .... i also will be (as i mentioned above) be trying it as a standalone DAC for PC based playback units in an AV setup and i hope that it performs as well as it did as a portable unit .... but more on this once i have it set up and try it out
i know that a day or two isnt enough to really formulate some good impressions, but i really want to get one of these for myself so this is why i decided to see if its really going to work for my purposes or not ..... and my final decision is ..... I REALLY WANT ONE (even at the normal price its worth the expenditure since i cant call any audio item an investment)
herewith follow some pics and my story with the unit so far :
uDSD being unboxed
i read the instruction manual and i discovered that they describe how to connect it with Foobar using the SACD and ASIO drivers .... whch was cool since i already had Foobar installed on my Windows tablet so i installed the additional components and configured them as described and i was ready for some listening
all connected
So i have two pairs of headphones and one is a cheap Sennheiser HD202 and the other is a Sennheiser HD555 with a 595 mod done to it ..... so i tried out both and im only briefly going to mention what i found wth the HD202 since that isnt a really serious of headphones
the first time i plugged these into the uDSD and just listened to these i was amazed at the difference between the standard headphone jack of the table vs the DAC unit .... put simply it was a major leap in sound quality, even with the cheapie headphones BUT further listening revealed that the headphones were really a limitation, so since this isnt a headphones impression i basically changed over to the HD555
this now was more like it ..... initial impressions were that this was more lifelike and gave a warmer sound and was really closer to my actual hi-fi system. the midrange was natural and what more could i ask for, while the treble was detailed and yet sweet sounding without ever getting harsh or bright (which it easily could, using certain listening material with the HD202, but that was more the fault of the headphones than the DAC) Then we move on to the bass .... it sounded pretty full but it wasnt as even as you would get on proper hi-fi and certain instruments like bass guitar could sound mildly rumbly and drone a bit, but PLEASE NOTE that im attributing this once again as a limitation on the headphones being used, rather than the uDSD. I really would love to have had a better headphones for testing, but really, the sound that i got from the setup with the HD555 was something that i could easily live with as a load shedding option and not having a full system to play my music with since im pretty sure that the bass would improve with better headphones and possibly with some settling in time.
then i tried some 24/96 tracks which i dont have many off but i have some downloaded samples
as you can see from the bits circled in red these play at a higher bit rate than standard uncompressed 16/44.1 which would be showing 1412 while compressed (but still lossless would be lower still). The higher format played music clearer, and with a fair amount of noticably more detail, so even though it isnt a huge difference it was different enough to make me want to obtain more music in the higher resolution formats
Given that the source was a tablet i did not even bother to try a full 24/192 track but i did visit 2L and some other websites where i could download some legally free samples of this format as well as some DSD files which i am going to try out on my full system which is powered by a proper PC as well as in my actual AV setup (so a bit more on that later one after i have setup all those other systems to try this unit out in those)
i wish i could spend more time with this unit so i could actually give it some settling in time, but its not mine so i have to be patient till i eventually get my own one (which im even more determined to do when i have the spare cash) ..... but i will have to return this one (reluctantly) to its rightful owner very soon, so im going to have to do everything in a bit of a rush, and sadly i cannot take my time to allow the stuff to settle in properly ..... for me the main thing is that i got an opportunity to evaluate exactly what this item does before i could purchase it :thumbs: and my conclusion is that its a great item and if you want it for a prtable solution its really top-notch .... i also will be (as i mentioned above) be trying it as a standalone DAC for PC based playback units in an AV setup and i hope that it performs as well as it did as a portable unit .... but more on this once i have it set up and try it out
